"Why, you've seen her! You didn't say you had seen her."
Pippin looked helplessly into the clear gray eyes that had suddenly grown sharp and piercing. "I—don't—know!" he said.
"Don't know what?"
"Whether I see her, or whether I just—" He stopped to sigh and run his fingers through his hair, almost knocking his file out. "I expect I'll have to explain!" he said.
"I think you will!" The tone was not harsh, but it was firm and decided. The Matron had seen many people, and was not to be beguiled by the brightest eyes or the most winning smile. Moreover, the "pictur" Pippin had conjured up had brought a corresponding image on her mental kinetoscope; she, too, saw the child with eyes like running water and the prettiest way of speaking; saw and recognized.
Pippin sighed again.
"When I say I don't know," he said slowly, "it's because I don't! Just plain that! When I said the way that gal looked, it—well, it's like it wasn't me that said it, but somebody else inside me. Why, I spoke it right off like it was a piece: 'twas as if somebody knew all along what that little gal looked like. Now—"
The Matron took him up sharply. "As if somebody knew? What do you mean by 'somebody'?"
Light came to Pippin. Why, of course!
"I expect it's a boy!" he said.